


(without you) i am

by JD2357



Category: RWBY
Genre: Bullying, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Child Abandonment, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Kinda, Murder, Spoilers: Volume 8 (RWBY), fuelled by repeated listens to a 39 second casey snippet, mentions a lot of characters for like a couple lines, these tags are a barrel of laughs huh, what a queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:22:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28039890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JD2357/pseuds/JD2357
Summary: Clean the linens, sweep the floors...Shut your mouth and do your chores...-A look into a girl going hungry.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	(without you) i am

The brush is old. Matted. Its clumped bristles glide along the muddied floor with all the smoothness of an unwashed cheese grater. Still, it’s not such a hard job. Anyone could do it.

It was always her who had to, and it always would be, but anyone _could._

Once she’s done here, she’ll have to clean out the barn of cowpats for their coming-in by sunset. That’s always icky - she hates the smell, especially - but anyone could do it. Then it’ll be out into the storage sheds to bring in enough firewood for the night… Usually only three trips there and back, if she fills it _really_ full. And it’ll be worth it to see the fireplace roaring.

With a name like Cinder, it’s only natural she loves watching the fire at night-time; imagining shapes from the rising loll of flaming tongues, shapes of weapons and cities and beautiful people like the ones who come down from above, and take one of the other girls away. They’re always so different - their skin glows, their eyes seem traced by black track-lines, and they wear clothes with such _colours._ And the women wear these pretty shoes - they’re like slippers, only with a fun little stick poking out of the bottom that goes _click-clack click-clack_ all the way along. It must be so exciting for the other girls, when they see the world up there, where that’s normal. Where _everyone_ is like that.

For a few seconds, the soreness in her bandaged, bony fingers seems easy to ignore as Cinder lets herself be caught up in the image… But that’s all she indulges for. There’ll be time for daydreaming at the fire. If someone catches her slacking off…

“Oi, Cinder! You missed a spot!”

One of the boys calls from around the corner, and Cinder struggles to her feet, quickly running off the numbness in her knees from their time on the hot, splintering wood. Around she goes, and--”Augh!”--down she goes, the already-snorting boy’s foot left jutting out into her path like a Centinel hurtling into a carriage. They’d moved the pigs’ trough for the occasion, she realises as she falls into its length, and coats herself in the very slob she’d poured out only half an hour ago.

Even in the few seconds where her head is submerged, she can hear them - oh yes, because it’s never just one - _laughing_ louder than the squelching around her hair. Growling, feeling like she could melt the sides of the trough with pure rage, she pulls her head from the goop, and swallows so that her ears pop--

“--believe she fell for that!”

“I bet if we told her she’d forgot to clean the chimney, she’d crawl in there while the fire was on!”

“Why can’t she just eat this stuff instead o’ stealin’ scraps off our plates? Suits ‘er better!”

“Lads, look, the dirty animal’s gotten out! Th’ pigs’re fine, though.”

Hilarious. Never heard that one before. 

She doesn’t have time for this. But she doesn’t have time to clean up either. So she pushes her hands to her face, and gingerly pushes the splattered liver and mince from her eyes. She shakes her hair once, and a rotting apple core falls out of the curls. With that, she turns the corner again, and back to work.

She’ll have to beg for a second bath of the month this evening. They definitely won’t be able to spare any hot water for her, now she’ll need another bucketful for the floors… And she won’t get to the fireplace before bed either. 

Letting her tensed muscles deflate into the habitual repetition of _back and forth and back and forth and squeeze and dip and twist and down and back and forth and back and forth,_ a sigh escapes her dry throat.

-

_Don’t do it,_ she tells herself. _Don’t put all the nights you’ve earned a proper bed for go to waste. Don’t let him win._

“That reminds me, Cind-y, been meanin’ t’ask ya - were your parents tired o’ your whiny voice or that Brothers-damn’d smell--”

“Shut UP!”

It doesn’t matter how tired her arms are from the wheelbarrow, she reasons - if she just gets him on the ground, then she can--she can kick him, yeah, that’ll do it--so she leaps at him like the family cats leap for the birds, or like the Sabres leap for huntsmen, and just starts _hitting_ him - her raw knuckles on his jaw, her patched elbow buried into his stomach, her teeth biting through his shirt into his shoulder like she hadn’t had a meal since - since - when _had she_ \--?

“Wh-- Get off o’ him, you psycho!”

A taller boy grabs her by the sooty collar, and throws her back into the dirt with a roar. Landing face-first, she scrambles around to face them again, already dirtied undersides of fingernails feeling no different as they push up against puddling earth. Eyes of fire turning up to see… He’s laughing. 

That’s all she could do. With all that anger, building for weeks.

It’s _funny_ to him. Like a puppy nibbling on your finger.

A distant cloud rumbles with thunder as Cinder wilts, readying herself for a night under the rain.

-

“I’ll take her.”

-

The lobby is magical. The girls here seem so _tall_ and _strong_ \- they all have plates full of potatoes, and smoked meats, and fish and vegetables, all atop perfectly polished platters! And it’s so _warm_ inside, as though the whole floor is a blazing fireplace! One lady’s face alone has more colour than she’s ever seen in the dreary skies of home, cheeks lit red with what Cinder can only imagine is contentment. 

A bell startles her - looking for its source, her eyes are drawn to a grand clock hanging from the far wall, hitting a new hour. That’s all, and she breathes a sigh of relief.

Her new sisters are _stunning_ \- Clorinda’s headband has a pattern just as pretty as a real flower, and Tisbe’s hair looks perfect, its colour that of a glistening bread-roll, and its perfectly coiled shapes falling like scrumptious cinnamon rolls--

“U-unh?”

And behind them… The biggest plate of treats she’s ever seen, with just those kinds of bread rolls she might have been given the stale end of, and the kind of dusted cheeses which would always leave bits stuck in the grater for weeks, and the full, juice-laden grapes she’d pick by hand to be sent to the brewery! All… All for…? _Just_ for he--

“You’re to make sure the laundry is folded… … … … and the floors are clean enough to eat off of.”

But--but is it _really for--_?!

“Nn--tch, f-food?” She asks cautiously, not daring to believe.

The powerful woman throws a bread roll onto the floor, and Cinder gorges herself on it with gluttony not only uncharacteristic of herself, but _impossible_ of herself - she’d never _had_ so much to eat at once!

The sound of rushing blood in her ears blocks out the girls’ giggling.  
  


-

She brings Clorinda her clothes on a fresh hanger one morning, having missed a crease. It earns her a slap, but that’s not so bad. That’s just what sisters do. Better than being thrown into the mud, that’s for sure!

-

Tisbe spills an awful lot of water as she’s walking, and Cinder so dearly wishes she’d pay more attention to her surroundings. Sweeping these floors is hard enough as it is, without having to try and dry out soaked red carpets…! Still, they can laugh together about it. It’s alright. 

-

“M-Madame, if you’re taking my sisters to a concert, I’d love to attend! I’ve always wanted to see--”

“Shut your mouth, girl. You are well aware of all the chores which need doing before we’re back, as well as the very sophisticated customers who’ll need a place to stay once the songs are over And please, do not refer to them as _your_ sisters so _readily._ You are theirs - and only if they want you at that.”

“But I--!”

_Click-clack, click-clack._ Just as pretty a sound to listen to as ever, and oh, she fawns over it! Her mother’s gentle hand on her shoulder helps her ground herself into reality, newly polished nails digging ever so slightly into flesh through the thin cloth Cinder wears.

“...But since you’ve been _so good,_ I do have a little gift for you today.”

And from her Dust Crystal-specked handbag, Madame brandishes a necklace with a gem the… The colour of her eyes? Or--or if not, then certainly close--oh, she _bets_ that was the intention, maybe Madame just got it a little wrong!

“I--th-thank you, thank you thank you so much, I don’t know who I’d be without you, mo--m--Madame!”

From so tall above, she smiles a thin smile - the powerful kind that only these Atlesian women know how to do. 

“No one. Without me, you would be no one, nowhere, and nothing. Remember that, Cinder.”

She’s so happy, she could cry. “I will - I-I always will!”

-

The dishes are done in record time, and Cinder dares to let out an open sigh of exhaustion. How late is it? How long has she been working today? 

“Cinder! Another batch is due in, and they’ll need washed twice as fast! Wake up in there, you layabout!”

Cinder hurriedly turns the sigh into a laugh - oh, Tisbe and her sense of humour! The insults are just her way of showing love, really. And, and in fairness to her, it _is_ a very busy night, and they’ve had to let go of so many staff because--because--why _did_ they--

Clorinda chimes in to stop that thought in its tracks. **“Cinder!”**

“Yes, comin’--com _ing_ right up, stepsister!”

-

“AGH! I’m SORRY, I just - I thought the customers might like the music on the Mistralian channel better tonight--”

She’s almost crying with disappointment at herself before the shock comes, because that’s a _lie,_ and only _evil little girls_ tell lies to their mo--to, to Madame. But it… It was her favourite song, the one they would play on summer nights on the farm, and she just wanted to hear it again! Was that _so_ bad--?

“And who said you should start _thinking,_ Cinder? Was it Clorinda or Tisbe? Because I recall giving no such command!”

“It, I, no one did, I just-- **KSSSAAGH!** Please, please, I’m sorry--”

The voltage will kill her, Cinder thinks. She’ll die of the pain before Madame stops.

“What are you?”

“I--I don’t know-- **AAAAAAGGH!”**

**“** Yes you do, Cinder.”

**_“Please!”_ **

**“** You are--”

“ **NOTHING! NOTHING WITHOUT YOU!”**

The pain stops, and she hyperventilates, falling to her knees, desperately gasping for the oxygen her lungs need to keep from passing out, because she still has more chores and if she can’t do them Madame will have her tossed into the street, and then she really will be _nothing_ , just like she used to be, and she can’t - that can’t…!

“Good girl. Now, the silver needs shining.”

“Y-y-yes… Thank you so much for....” ‘For what?!’ Cinder asks herself briefly. Why would she thank the woman who’s just made her go through _that_?!

But then she looks up and meets those ice-blue eyes boring into her own, and her boiling (childish!) contempt whistles into quenched steam. 

“...for everything.”

-

She wishes she could have those strawberries. Why does Tisbe get one when she doesn’t? Her stomach is so empty today. It feels like her insides burn. Is this....what _real_ hunger feels like…?

-

“That man will never come to this hotel again, after your boorish hands spilled his tea all over his suit! What do you have to say for yourself?!”

“AAAGH--I--I--Without _you-hoo-haaagh,_ I _aaaam_ \--”

-

She hates cleaning the toilets. People are just so disgusting about it! It’s practically worse than cleaning up the cowpats - at least the cows weren’t _missing_ buckets! She scrubs harder, and faster, trying to get the job done as quickly as possible, and suddenly her hands slip off the surface, and she tumbles onto the floor, covered in…

...in _piss._ Why use nice words for it? That’s what it is.

Clorinda titters behind her. “Do wash yourself before supper, you dirty girl. It’ll be cold by the time you come down, but I’ll be sure to save a few crusts just for you!”

Cinder smiles weakly, but doesn’t laugh when Clorinda leaves. It’s not funny anymore.

-

“No, nonono please, I’ll be good I swe-- **kkeehhh--I--I--without…!”**

**-**

The woman with the flushed face is a familiar sight to Cinder by now, and Cinder’s grown rather tired of her. If anyone here’s a _layabout,_ it’s her, surely - spending every night in those cushioned seats, drinking herself into delirium…! One of these days, Cinder thinks, she must do something to get back at her, for lazing about while she has to…!

...No, she reasons. That’d be ridiculous. Madame would know. Madame always knows.

So instead, she looks for any of the local Huntsmen or Huntresses lingering about the lobby this late in the evening, hoping for a convenient chore to place her in eavesdropping range.

-

“I--please, you can’t make me say i-- **IIIIEEEGHH! Huu--kuh--IIiiiiii--I wo--I--I--”**

“Seems you’re ready for a new voltage upgrade in the morning, dear.”

“ **Ah, NO, n-no I--I am - without you I am nothing, without you I am** **_nothing,_ ** **please don’t--”**

The charge stops, and Madame smiles 

sickeningly. warmly.

But she still has a new remote the next morning.

-

“You _missed_ a spot.”

Again. This again. She glares up at them, and the muddy trail they’ve followed her now Sisyphean labours with, amber eyes burning and blood boiling and--

_And they’re still laughing. That’s all she can ever do to anyone. Make them_ **_laugh._ **

Her skin tingles like burning - like the vicious pins and needles that assault her limbs when they’re stuck in one place, one chore, for too long - and with a scorching caress she barely feels on her flesh, she throws a flaming sponge at their feet, and the hallway erupts in scalding steam.

-

“ **Say it,”** Madame demands, with fury. 

On the inside, Cinder smiles. That’s new. That’s a new reaction. It’s certainly not laughing...and Madame never raises her voice. Is she...afraid of her? 

That’s…exciting. 

That feels good.

And in a glorious, terrible moment of understanding, Cinder identifies why. She wants them to be afraid. She wants to be strong enough that she won’t need to take their orders again. She wants to be _powerful._

Letting something derisive, something spiteful, and something of a _blatant lie_ into her tone, Cinder repeats the empty words she wants to hear with that whiny voice of hers.

“Without you… I am nothing.”

-

Five years of empty words and resolute nights. She’s never known her birthday, so she makes it the day Rhodes came to her room in the night, and she decided to become a Huntress - that’s the day of _her_ birth. 

Her Aura is fragile, but that can be improved with training. Her Semblance is, if she says so herself, perfect in its irony. The power to ‘superheat,’ her mentor theorises. The first skill she works on is turning the dust in the world around her, that which she’s spent years of her life scourging from floors and windows and pipes and vases, into jagged flakes and blades of glass. 

She never tells Rhodes her motive for this focus. She doesn’t imagine he’d approve.

-

One night, he carries in a meal from the lobby - all of her favourites that could possibly be stacked on one dish. For all she appreciates it, a part of her feels like she doesn’t even want it. Hunger still burns her, certainly… But she burns every day now. Burning feels good.

-

Another night, as he turns to leave, she grabs his hand to ask a question.

_The truth is, Cinder, that no one will ever love you. But my daughters and I will tolerate you, so long as you keep up your excellent work._

**“** Sir, do… Do you…”

“...Do I what, kid? Wanna spar again?” He chuckles loudly before she can shake her head, trailing off into his typical humour. “Nah. I think I’ll need a trip to the doctor in th’ mornin’ if I let you at these ol’ legs o’ mine again! Damn you ‘n your height advantage,” he says with a sarcastic grin, rubbing a soft hand through her hair.

“...Hah. Yeah. That’s all I was gonna ask. Sorry.”

She never does ask him, in the end.

-

“You! What is-- How did you get that? Tisbe, don’t come in--we have to get Mom - she’s gone totally loony, she has a sword - the remote, we need the remote, and then we can throw her out - throw her off the edge down to those pigs in Mantle, where she belongs! Mom!”

-

Clorinda loved to shovel strawberries down her gullet, knowing that all the while, _she_ was starving for just a single one. So Cinder makes her know the crunch and the sticky molten caramel of melting glass in her throat when she enters the room first.

Tisbe always played with her hair, that accursed perfect hair, rolled and twisted in those perfect circles - and there was a digging comment every day about Cinder’s; _greasy,_ or _unkempt,_ or _barbaric._ The only way that feels right is one last twist for Tisbe - a smoking snap of her neck with searing palms.

The last emotion she sees from Madame before the shocks begin is terror. And that _fuels her,_ more than any trivial nourishment from the kitchen could ever have provided her with.

It doesn’t matter how many times she abuses the remote’s single button. It doesn’t matter how many times the voltage has been upped since the first time. It doesn’t matter that the white explosions behind her pupils almost blind her from seeing the light fade from this _bitch’s eyes._

“You’re right,” Cinder concurs with deadly seriousness as her hand tightens around the powerful woman’s neck. “Without you, I _am_ nothing.”

Her voice begins to break, as maddening glee at what she’s _finally_ doing and incensed fury at what’s been _done_ to her melt and meld together into a glass ball for her self-control - one she drops instantly, shattering in the same moment with the bone her fingers decimate.

"But _because of you... I am **everything!** "_

For a moment, she’s free.

The bell tolls for midnight, and she meets the eyes of Rhodes - with him, the eyes of everyone else. Eyes looking down to meet a lost cause of a girl.

He tells her that running’s all she’ll ever do now. But he’s wrong.

And she fights to prove it.

She kills him to prove it. 

Only the weak have to run.

And she isn’t weak. 

Nor would she ever be.

Because if he was right, then she’s… Oh Brothers, she’s - she’s ruined everything.

But that can’t be right.

Because…

(Why? Whywhywhywhywhy _why)_

_Because I_ **_am_ ** _everything. And the world will know that._

_-_

She learns what hunger feels like again in due time. The parasite brings the same feeling. That’s alright. It hasn’t learned how to stop feeling that yet. All she needs is the other half of the powers.

-

She learns what it’s like to burn again atop the hypethral ruin of Beacon Tower. The pain is indescribable, and as fresh as the day she first singed her hand on the stovetop. It’s been so long that she’d forgotten how to stomach it.

When she wakes up, the hand she once scorched on the stovetop is gone. But the parasite remains, and that’s all that matters.

-

Her ears ring as rocks tumble and shatter against the ethereal light of the Vault floor, and she gasps for air as the Spring Maiden stands first, grinning and…

_Laughing._

“Had enough yet~?”

“SHUT UP!”

The lesson that day is the feeling of the cold again - inside her, around her. No Aura to burn; to superheat. All she can do is Fall.

-

“And I refuse to starve,” she snarls into a Schnee’s face, moments before being forced to go hungry as Fria whips up a freezing chill akin to Madame’s eyes. It’s not running, she promises herself. Only waiting for the moment.

-

_“That’s all you’ll ever do.”_

-

The silver eyed girl sets her awash in pain, almost ripping Grimm from human muscle one by one, tissue by tissue, tendon by tendon - until she bursts out through the roof, and flies, flies so high up no one would ever catch her, to stare down at the city of Atlas, as though she’s the lady from above now, and the ever-pacing specks below are merely the pitiful tools of the elite to be used.

_But you ran away._

_Rhodes was right._

She screams smoke and flame, finally tasting the ashen flavour that Clorinda and Tisbe did in their cathartic, cauterised ends.

-

“I think--”

“Did you hear that, my pet? She _thinks._ She _wants._ ”

Cinder thinks about burning her.

-

“I don’t _serve_ anyone! And neither would you, if you weren’t _built_ that way!”

Her jeers hide the true extent of her contempt for Polendina’s creation.

What she hates is how much of herself she can see in Penny…

...But what she hates _more_ is how much she can’t.

-

“I suppose he remains useful after all. Speaking of which… Cinder.”

Pain. Fresh pain. New pain. She’s learned to block it out, but the parasite hasn’t.

Cinder screams, and writhes, and smolders.

“You chose to disobey my specific instructions.”

She can’t think. The world is nothing but _feeling_ now. And this feels like…

Like…

“Just to fail again.”

She’s failing. She's falling.

She drops a plate which shatters beneath her.

She misses a spot on the statue in the lobby the day Jacques Schnee and his eldest daughter visit, and the hotel takes the greatest publicity hit in its history.

She lets Amber escape.

The silver eyed girl mangles her.

The Spring Maiden makes a fool out of her.

Those Atlesian _bastards_ make her _run,_ as if she were _weak._

The Winter Maiden burns her parasite free and her brooch to dust, as Amity rises to look down on her.

As Atlas rises to look down on them all.

“And I’ve realised…”

That’s when she recognises this feeling. That _condescending_ voice from above. That’s when she knows what to do, what never to say again, what she’ll never, ever--

“...it’s all my fault.”

_...what?_

“You’ve fought your whole life unwaveringly for what you want.”

_Yes,_ she wants to reply, her heart almost dancing with joy - finally, finally someone _sees it,_ finally someone can see how _hard_ she’s _tried_ \--

“And here I am, holding you back…”

Cinder looks up to meet Salem’s eyes, and finds the red glow of love that ice-cold eyes could never express - the warm light of a midnight fireplace and its dying coals.

“...instead of lifting you up.”

And her parasite hand stretches up with the last of its strength, senses overloaded and frayed, to take the first help off the dirty floor that anyone’s ever offered her.

“You deserve so much more than I’ve given you,” Salem admits.

_I do,_ Cinder agrees silently. So much more than anyone’s given her.

But even still… After all her failures…

Without Salem…

What would she be, if not…?

-

The selected vessel kneels before her Queen with practiced, imprinted poise. Four Maidens, young women who wield magic of unimaginable power…

And she can have all four.

“Yes.

I will claim what is ours…

Thank you.

Without you, I am nothing.”

**Author's Note:**

> firstly I wanna say that if I missed any important tags, pls lemme know, because this is kinda super fucked up in a lot of ways and i don't wanna distress people if i can avoid it.
> 
> but if you're here, thanks so much for reading! Cinder's actually pretty far from being my fave RWBY character, but Midnight got the brainworms going and i kinda just wrote 4000 words in 1 night before i knew what i was doing! she's still horrible but i'm too empathetic so javjczjxnc you get this. stepsister names taken from an 1800s opera take on the cinderella story - seemed less on-the-nose than robbing the disney names, and i like these ones better.
> 
> might end up doing more fics during the hiatus to keep myself from going insane... comments welcome, as I'm not that used to writing fanfic style, and any thoughts are lovely to read! <3


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